Director, Scriptwriter, Performer

Menum

Tag Archives: Louna-Tuuli Luukka

New issue of web magazine ICE HOLE – The Live Art Journal edited by me is online on 30 November. It tackles the rise of sex-positive culture in performance art, particularly participatory performances designed for sexual exploration and pleasure. Is it art, sexy art or just sex? And where’s the line between art, sex-positive activism and sex work?

Feature interviews of performance artist Julius Elo (FIN) and performance artist & sex worker Sadie Lune (DE/US). Also Slutartists (FIN), who caused a controversy in the 75th anniversary gala of the Degree Programme in Acting at the Theater Academy of the University of the Arts, are interviewed.

I’ve been involved in Reality Research Centre working group called Work Island for a year now. We’ve met every now and then to talk about the revolution taking place in working life; fluid new work of no boundaries is replacing old work of permanent working hours, locations and steady careers. New work is everywhere, 24/7. This is actually ten year old observation. Today digital revolution and development in robotics result into a decrease in job opportunities, particularly when we talk about paid jobs. There’s less and less paid work but also less need to work. Yet we are urged to work even harder. For what, we ask.

As Naomi Klein points out in her book This Changes Everything – Capitalism vs. the Climate, if we seriously are going to fight against climate change and overshooting the planet, we need to decrease productivity and consumption. According to a study she is referring we shouldn’t work more than three or four days a week.

This is a shocking prospect to Panda. He (or she) is a charater I created in 2006. Panda is an embodiment of new work and he’s always at work, even though Panda does nothing that an old worker would consider work. Panda lives for work and he himself is his main work. He is a performer, orator, opportunist and a possible charlatan. He has no clue of physical labour, or physicality in general. Panda never eats, sleeps or has sex. He drinks only sparkling wine and enjoys flirting and talking about sex – but mostly Panda talks about work.

Panda in Reality Research Centre performance Portrait of a New Worker in 2007 with Maria Nuutinen, Erich Weidle and Janne Pellinen. Photo: Pekka Pitkänen

Among other interesting articles about work, you can read about Panda’s work at Reality Research Centre in 2007 here from page 33.

Work Island has revived Panda. One of the outcomes is Intervention into the Labour Movement. It’s made for trade union meetings. It is actually an alarm call from growing number of frustrated freelance members like Luukka and me. To us the labour movement, still mainly serving the needs of old workers, is outdated. Freelancers remain more or less unprotected and yet we keep on paying our membership fees… For what? In the intervention Panda helps union members to distinguish whether they are new or old workers. Then he persuades the new workers to leave the union and join the rank of pandas.